Democrats say cuts can’t cure $15-27 billion budget shortfall

The Express-News’ Bobby Cervantes reports that Democrats assailed the notion that the state’s budget crisis could be solved with cuts alone at a Monday press conference held at the Capitol.

With the revenue shortfall estimated between $15-$27 billion, almost every state spending program is on the chopping block for budget cuts — in large part because many members of the Legislature as well as the Governor, ran for election promising not to raise taxes.

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Democratic Caucus leader Jessica Farrar, D-Houston>

Democrats claim that stripping down the budget will end up costing significantly more in the long term than it will save in the short term.

“What does it cost when we don’t repair a highway?” asked Democratic House Caucus Chair Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston. “When we have cuts to mental health care, what does that cost our criminal justice system?”

How about the impact of education cuts, she said, asking, “What does it cost if we don’t educate the workforce of the future?”

“What happens when we cut teachers out of the classroom and we have 40-45 kids in a geometry class, trying to learn a difficult subject?” she asked.

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Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio

Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, speculated that lawmakers will spend the entire summer dealing with the budget mess. Normally, the session ends right after Memorial Day.

“I don’t believe any of this will be resolved until August,” Coleman said. “If 101 Republicans want to slash and burn, that’s what they will do.”

Coleman noted that lawmakers “lose elections” when they kick hundreds of low income children off of health care coverage or cause college tuition costs to skyrocket as happened in 2003 when they cut billions of dollars to close a budget shortfall.

“Texas ranks 50th in per capita spending – dead last,” he said. “There’s not much excess or waste.”

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Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston

Coleman added: “This rhetoric of today is bad rhetoric. It’s hateful. No one should govern on their rhetoric because you really get bad public policy.”

But Democrats weren’t ruling out spending cuts, Coleman said.

“The solution in other states has been looking at the right cuts,” Coleman said.

Earlier Monday, Texas’ comptroller announced that the Legislature will have $72.2 billion in general revenue to spend in during the next budgeting cycle.

During the last budgeting cycle, the Legislature passed a budget that had $87 billion dollars in general revenue spending. Almost $7 billion of that money came from federal stimulus funds that will not be there this time.

Assuming no increase in state spending, the revenue estimate leaves the state with $15 billion hole in its balance sheet.

Groups such as the Center for Public Policy Priorities have estimated that when accounting for Texas’ population growth and increasing demand for government services, state agencies would need about $99 billion to be fully funded, or a gap of about $27 billion.